The invention relates to a refrigeration unit in a refrigerator, a freezer, or the like, and particularly to an arrangement of components of the refrigeration unit.
As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, a refrigerator, a freezer, or the like 1 of the prior art consists of a main unit 2 and a machine room 3 which is disposed above the main unit. A refrigeration unit 4 for cooling the interior of the main unit 2 is disposed in the machine room 3. In the refrigeration unit 4, a fan motor 6 is disposed behind a refrigerant condenser 5, and a fan cover 7 covers the periphery of the fan motor. A refrigerant compressor 8 is disposed behind the fan motor 6. The outside air sucked by the fan motor 6 passes through the refrigerant condenser 5 and is then directly blown to the refrigerant compressor 8 to cool the refrigerant compressor 8.
In the machine room 3, in addition to an electrical equipment box 10, various accessory parts such as an expansion valve cover 11, and a pressure switch mounting plate 12 are adequately disposed around the refrigerant compressor 8. These accessory parts are arranged without specially considering the air flow ejected from the refrigerant condenser 5. As indicated by the arrows in FIG. 2, therefore, the air flow ejected from the refrigerant condenser 5 rebounds on the accessory parts. As a result, there arises a problem in that the air flow reversely moves around the fan cover 7 and is again sucked into the refrigerant condenser 5, thereby lowering the efficiency of the refrigerant condenser 5. Furthermore, the cooling air fails to effectively impinge on the whole of the refrigerant compressor 8, and hence the refrigerant compressor 8 cannot be sufficiently prevented from being overheated.
Moreover, the air ejected from the fan motor 6 rebounds on the accessory parts to form a turbulence flow. Therefore, the load imposed on the fan motor is increased, thereby producing another problem in that the operation efficiency of the fan motor is lowered.
In order to solve these problems, Japanese Patent Examined Publication No. Sho. 60-4776, Japanese Utility Model Unexamined Publication No. Sho. 63-192876, and Japanese Utility Model Unexamined Publication No. Hei. 5-36277, and the like disclose a configuration in which a guide plate such as a wind direction plate, a partition plate, or an air guide plate is attached between a fan motor and a refrigerant compressor. In this configuration, a step of attaching the guide plate is additionally required, whereby the production cost is increased.